City again looking at annexing land

Updated 11:03 pm, Wednesday, October 3, 2012

For the first time in more than a decade, the City Council took its first steps Wednesday toward possibly annexing the rapidly growing unincorporated areas surrounding the city.

The city's planning department outlined an overhaul of San Antonio's decade-old annexation policy, which would provide new flexibility to incorporate developed and undeveloped areas, and areas where dense development is anticipated.

The proposed changes offer a mechanism to evaluate which areas should be brought into the city, realign the city's rules to reflect recently passed state laws that make annexing more difficult, and would create a long-term plan to guide the annexation process.

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If the council were to approve recommendations, the planning department could spend several months to develop a 10-year annexation plan. John Dugan, the director of the city's Department of Planning and Community Development, said his department would probably be able to identify some key areas more quickly.

“The big planning challenge for all of us is, ‘where are those people going to live and work,'” Dugan said, and pointed out that much of the growth is expected to occur outside existing city limits.

Under most circumstances, state law requires the city to pass a separate three-year plan — which sets out a series of requirements that must be met — before it is allowed to expand its boundaries. The city would only be allowed to expand its city limits after those three years have passed.

That state-required timeline led District 10 Councilman Carlton Soules to warn that it would be years before the city could successfully annex new territory.

Bexar County officials have repeatedly called on city leaders to resume annexing because they don't have the zoning powers the city has to regulate and plan the growth.

“It needs to happen fast ... because if we don't get this out here, we're going to face a real challenge to our ability to plan,” said District 8 Councilman W. Reed Williams.

He told Dugan his support would be contingent upon the city allowing for some flexibility in how services will be delivered to rural areas.

County commissioners, such as Kevin Wolff, have argued that the county simply can't provide the services — such as police, trash pick-up, libraries and parks — that communities need once they're established.

District Attorney Susan Reed this week announced a new plan to crack down on the illegal dumping that has plagued two unincorporated Northeast side neighborhoods: Camelot II and Windsor Oaks.

In his comments, which were largely supportive of the overhaul, Mayor Julián Castro implicitly acknowledged the county's loud campaign for the city to begin annexing again.

“What we have is the county telling us — ‘you guys need to do something because we don't have any way to help manage the growth and provide the services that these very-well populated areas need,'” he said.

Soules said after the meeting that while annexing Camelot II and other neighborhoods like it wouldn't provide the city with a new stream of revenue, it was important to consider other benefits from bringing them into the city.

“Do you take an area that can't get service and is in decline; and you let it just slip completely? And then what is the impact of that area on adjacent areas?” he said. “There's bigger issues than just a straight line can we afford service or not.”